10 Fastest Growing Jobs in Manufacturing

What are the fastest growing careers in Manufacturing?

Manufacturing careers include jobs in working with materials and equipment to make or maintain products. 

Here is a list of 10 fastest growing careers in the Manufacturing career cluster with substantial job demand.

1. Industrial Machinery Mechanics: Projected Job Growth: 10.50%
   Repair, install, adjust, or maintain industrial production and processing machinery or refinery and pipeline distribution systems. May also install, dismantle, or move machinery and heavy equipment according to plans.
2. Recycling and Reclamation Workers: Projected Job Growth: 6.63%
   Prepare and sort materials or products for recycling. Identify and remove hazardous substances. Dismantle components of products such as appliances.
3. Food Batchmakers: Projected Job Growth: 5.60%
   Set up and operate equipment that mixes or blends ingredients used in the manufacturing of food products. Includes candy makers and cheese makers.
4. Packaging and Filling Machine Operators and Tenders: Projected Job Growth: 4.93%
   Operate or tend machines to prepare industrial or consumer products for storage or shipment. Includes cannery workers who pack food products. 
5. Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic: Projected Job Growth: 4.71%
   Set up, operate, or tend more than one type of cutting or forming machine tool or robot.
6. Production, Planning, and Expediting Clerks: Projected Job Growth: 4.65%
   Coordinate and expedite the flow of work and materials within or between departments of an establishment according to production schedule. Duties include reviewing and distributing production, work, and shipment schedules; conferring with department supervisors to determine progress of work and completion dates; and compiling reports on progress of work, inventory levels, costs, and production problems.
7. Cabinetmakers and Bench Carpenters: Projected Job Growth: 4.61%
   Cut, shape, and assemble wooden articles or set up and operate a variety of woodworking machines, such as power saws, jointers, and mortisers to surface, cut, or shape lumber or to fabricate parts for wood products.
8. Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders: Projected Job Growth: 4.45%
   Set up, operate, or tend spraying or rolling machines to coat or paint any of a wide variety of products, including glassware, cloth, ceramics, metal, plastic, paper, or wood, with lacquer, silver, copper, rubber, varnish, glaze, enamel, oil, or rust-proofing materials. Includes painters of transportation vehicles such as painters in auto body repair facilities. 
9. Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers: Projected Job Growth: 4.44%
   Use hand-welding, flame-cutting, hand-soldering, or brazing equipment to weld or join metal components or to fill holes, indentations, or seams of fabricated metal products. 
10. Maintenance and Repair Workers, General: Projected Job Growth: 4.24%
    Perform work involving the skills of two or more maintenance or craft occupations to keep machines, mechanical equipment, or the structure of a building in repair. Duties may involve pipe fitting; HVAC maintenance; insulating; welding; machining; carpentry; repairing electrical or mechanical equipment; installing, aligning, and balancing new equipment; and repairing buildings, floors, or stairs.

This list was developed to provide meaningful information, so only occupations with a minimum number of available jobs were included.

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